Unforgettable political-police scandal shakes Serbia: top police in deep connection with organized crime.
The setting is reminiscent of the scenario of a crime series: Belgrade police chief Veselin Milić organizes a reconciliation meeting between two opposing crime clans in "Restaurant 27", located in an elite part of the capital, on May 12. Instead of reconciliation, Saša Vuković, aka Boske, kills Aleksandar Nešović, aka Baja, with gunshots, he recalls Deutsche says.
Who is Aleksandar Đorđević, the lawyer representing Veselin Milić
After that, ten people were arrested, including Veselin Milić, the former head of the Belgrade police. He, together with the present police security, removed the traces. Therefore, he was charged with failure to report and concealment of a crime. Several media reported, citing police sources, that the body of the murdered man was found burned in Šimanovci, 30 kilometers from Belgrade.
However, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said at a press conference that the body of the murdered man has not yet been found and that the search is ongoing. Some lawyers have already warned that Vučić's numerous statements hinder the investigation and represent an attempt at damage control.
It is interesting that the Minister of Police Ivica Dacic did not speak at all after the crime committed.
A cover up
The scandalous fact that one of the key chiefs of the Serbian police is in close contact with criminal circles and that he covered up traces of the murder shocked the Serbian public. The authorities, on the other hand, are trying to minimize the event in every possible way, but lawyer and former police commissioner Božo Prelevic points out to DW that "this event testifies to the metastasis of a regime that cannot function without crime":
"Criminals, on the other hand, want to have some compensations and appanages for what they do for the government. By the nature of things, now there is a conflict and after that we have a president who is only concerned with covering up the affair. All of this together leaves the bitter taste of a disintegrated state where no one exercises power and then they wonder why there is no chapter opening and progress in European integration," says Prelevic.
Police officer Milić, Boske and Baja: more natural murders in Senjak
Bare force
Political scientist Dejan Bursać believes that it will not be easy to cover up this scandal and assesses that "this affair has quite shaken the public":
"Here we do not have a case of some usual corruption or some kind of usual contact with some suspicious characters. I think this is a far more difficult situation, both for the institutions and for the regime of Aleksandar Vučić. It is obviously estimated that the public should not be left to draw its own conclusions, and that is why now the president of Serbia has to offer his version of the truth every day. He even seems to be angry with the police, as if it is not clear that the police is one of the pillars of preserving the regime, which is mainly maintained by bare force," our interlocutor points out.
The government is falling? Which government?
There are not a few who state that such an affair in any civilized country would lead to the fall of the government and new elections. The government in Serbia, as usual, has a different calculation and is at work diluting the story, involving the army in the search for the body and covering up the scandal with some statistics about the general decline in criminal acts and murders.
Božo Prelevic notes that "the government cannot fall in Serbia, when we don't have a government at all":
"We have a prime minister who works two days a week, and the rest of the time is in a private clinic. That's why we have only one man, an autocrat who has trampled all the institutions. Only he can fall. There is no responsibility there. Otherwise, nothing would happen to Serbia if Prime Minister Djuro Macut fell, because it would not be noticed, nor would it make any difference. The big question is whether we have a minister of police and whether he is allowed to resign? We have a mayor of Belgrade who is either in Italy or training water polo players. "Vučić created a government that does not exist anywhere in the world," Prelevic assessed for DW.
The case of Veselin Milić: Corruption kills
Without laws, institutions and common sense
It is quite certain that at least the Minister of Police, and probably the entire government, would resign in a large number of countries around the world, says Dejan Bursać and adds:
"That tells us what the Serbian Progressive Party is basing its government on. There are no laws, no institutions, no common sense, or anything that would indicate some morality and decency. Only the dry preservation of power by having the means of force on the one hand, and on the other selling the fog for the two million voters you need to be in power. They are not interested in any other form of government," Bursać told DW.
Bizarre announcements by Aleksandar Vučić
The repertoire of Aleksandar Vučić's statements after the outbreak of this affair was wide. He began, after 14 years of his rule, with threats to the police that "they will no longer be able to protect criminals" and that "drug dealers will no longer be able to wear police badges." There was also the bizarre announcement of "the adoption of a new law according to which policemen will be prohibited from guarding people from the underground." The arrest of Veselin Milić and other police officers for the government is also proof that "there are no protected persons".
By the way, the laws of every democratic state, and even Serbia today, do not allow this kind of coupling between the police and organized crime. This only shows how deep Serbia has fallen, comments Božo Prelevic, and points out that "in addition, the announcement of the opening of a website where citizens will be able to report arrogant SNS officials is also interesting":
"And those arrogant officials of the SNS are just serving to threaten and drive fear into people's bones to vote for the SNS. Vučić, of course, does not say that there are no arrogant officials or 'we will do everything so that there are no drug dealers', but he says that the police will not be able to protect drug dealers. Logic does not exist here anymore and we live from scandal to scandal, and each of these scandals takes some lives," emphasizes Prelevic.
Expired tricks?
If drug dealers have police badges or secret service badges, it is quite clear which party allowed them to have those badges, notes Dejan Bursać and says "if they have police security, it is quite clear with whose approval it was done":
"During the past year and a half of protests, we could see who, along with the police, is trying to defend the regime from the citizens. There are also criminals and thugs, hooligans, under the direct or indirect protection of the police. That's what Vučić said when he came to power and now, after so many years of absolute power by a hyper-corrupt party, he's apparently going back to how he's going to fight against it. I think the time for that has run out, and I'm not sure how far these tricks can go in Serbia today," concludes Bursać for DW.
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